Overall Rating	Gold
Overall Score	69.91
Liaison	Julie Hopper
Submission Date	Dec. 20, 2023

STARS v2.2

University of Southern California
OP-21: Water Use

Status

Score

Responsible Party

1.26 / 6.00

Zelinda Welch
Associate Director of Sustainability
USC Facilities Plant Management

"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Level of ”Physical Risk Quantity” for the institution’s main campus as indicated by the World Resources Institute Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas:

High

Part 1. Reduction in potable water use per person

Total water withdrawal (potable and non-potable combined):

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Total water withdrawal	417,097,419 Gallons	382,449,819 Gallons

Potable water use:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Potable water use	417,097,419 Gallons	382,449,819 Gallons

Start and end dates of the performance year and baseline year (or three-year periods):

	Start Date	End Date
Performance Period	July 1, 2021	June 30, 2022
Baseline Period	July 1, 2013	June 30, 2014

If end date of the baseline year/period is 2004 or earlier, provide:

A brief description of when and why the water use baseline was adopted:

The first USC Water Conservation Task Force issued its report in late 2015. The previous year, FY 2014 data was identified as the baseline for conservation moving forward as it coincides with USC's first formal greenhouse gas inventory.

Figures needed to determine "Weighted Campus Users":

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Number of students resident on-site	8,500	6,960
Number of employees resident on-site	46	40
Number of other individuals resident on-site	0	0
Total full-time equivalent student enrollment	43,941	35,913
Full-time equivalent of employees	15,257	13,189
Full-time equivalent of students enrolled exclusively in distance education	8,897	4,120
Weighted campus users	39,862.25	35,486.50

Potable water use per weighted campus user:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Potable water use per weighted campus user	10,463.47 Gallons	10,777.33 Gallons

Percentage reduction in potable water use per weighted campus user from baseline:

2.91

Part 2. Reduction in potable water use per unit of floor area

Gross floor area of building space:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Gross floor area	16,944,124 Gross square feet	13,050,001 Gross square feet

Potable water use per unit of floor area:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Potable water use per unit of floor area	24.62 Gallons per square foot	29.31 Gallons per square foot

Percentage reduction in potable water use per unit of floor area from baseline:

16.00

Part 3. Reduction in total water withdrawal per unit of vegetated grounds

Area of vegetated grounds:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Vegetated grounds	81.34 Acres	79.31 Acres

Total water withdrawal per unit of vegetated grounds:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Total water withdrawal per unit of vegetated grounds	5,127,826.64 Gallons per acre	4,822,214.34 Gallons per acre

Percentage reduction in total water withdrawal per unit of vegetated grounds from baseline:

-6.34

Optional Fields

A brief description of the institution's water-related behavior change initiatives:

To encourage students living on campus to use water more efficiently, USC Housing installed shower timers in all university owned apartments and suite style bathrooms. Any student can request a shower timer from the Housing office. In addition, there are water conservation signage and stickers posted around student housing locations. These cover tips regarding shorter showers, toilet flushes and laundry. In order to better quantify water usage by building, USC has installed sub-meters at approx. 80% of buildings on the UPC campus. More building specific data will help USC inform and educate the building users and would allow for conservation competitions between buildings similar to what USC has done on the energy side. Additionally, a water reporting email address was set up and advertised. The purpose is to encourage all stakeholders to see themselves as part of the solution to save water. Anyone can reach out using this email address to report leaks, broken sprinklers or ask questions.

A brief description of the institution's water recovery and reuse initiatives:

---

A brief description of the institution's initiatives to replace plumbing fixtures, fittings, appliances, equipment, and systems with water-efficient alternatives:

Since 2015, USC Housing has replaced approximately 6,800 old water fixtures with newer low flow models across housing buildings at UPC campus. USC replaced 1,650 old faucets with new low flow fixtures in non-housing buildings at both UPC and HSC campuses in 2020/2021. USC also has implemented low-flow fixture standards for all new construction projects on both the UPC and HSC campuses to improve water conservation efforts.

Website URL where information about the institution’s water conservation and efficiency efforts is available:

https://green.usc.edu/programs/water-conservation/

Additional documentation to support the submission:

USC-Native-and-Climate-Adapted-Plan_Public_081823.pdf

Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

USC Landscape: Native and Climate Adapted Plan, provides direction and guidance on all future landscape efforts to ensure transition to a low water use landscape. Plan was created through a university wide stakeholder engagement. See additional documentation for more information.

Data correction from 2021 STARS report: In 2023, we used improved data on the vegetated acreage across all 2023 USC campuses (UPC/HSC/WMSC). The Coliseum vegetated area is not included in the reported 81.34 acres. We adjusted the baseline data reported in the 2021 report with this improved data.

Note that the values of water use by vegetated acreage are not accurate as these numbers are not based on water use for solely the vegetated areas. USC is currently installing water meters to measure water use around vegetated grounds to measure our actual vegetated ground water use and to continuously work towards achieving USC's water conservation goals.